


the sleeping bud burst into bloom 🎭

by okaypianist



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gloves, Masks, Musicals, Phantom of the Opera - Freeform, singing right in each other's faces as one does, the author does not know a lot about productions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21707122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okaypianist/pseuds/okaypianist
Summary: "How long should we two wait before we're one?"All of this is scripted, but it's hitting Rey differently tonight. When the other actor lightly touches her throat with both of his gloved hands, Rey wonders if he notices her racing pulse.She steps away, as planned.She fixes her eyes on a pre-determined point.She sings.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 11
Kudos: 68
Collections: the short and completed Reylo works of o. k. p.





	the sleeping bud burst into bloom 🎭

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Advent Calendar day number eight! Thanks, Dani, for setting all of this up.
> 
> This is not particularly wintery. It's just Reylo Phantom of the Opera because that's what my brain wanted.

"All right! Break is over, y'all! We're picking up on page 84. Orchestra, that's rehearsal marker E for you."

Rey Abrams smooths out the lacy collar of her red-black-and-white dress for the third time in as many minutes. She's standing in the wings of the famous Tantivy Theatre, dressed as Christine Daae from the musical Phantom of the Opera and waiting to come back onstage. This is a role many young girls - and older girls, and grown women - dream of playing, and Rey is well aware of that rare mixture of hard work and good luck that got her here. 

The director likes her. The costumes fit her. Her voice studies are paying off wonderfully, so she doesn't feel like she's in any real danger of losing her voice - knock wood and thank the lucky singer scarf. She hasn't even missed a single E6 in public- that magical, high, quintessential Christine note- even though rehearsal hours are long.

She has just one problem with this part: why can't she manage to display a single bit of onstage chemistry with her Raoul? He is competent at his part. Technically proficient. He has short red hair instead of the longer locks she always pictured for Raoul, but that shouldn't really be a problem. Deep down, Rey is pretty sure she knows why she and her Raoul don't click... but that's right where she wants to keep that knowledge. Deep down. Buried. Unexamined.

__________

There have been weeks of preparation for the show's opening night in a few days, but today is the cast's first true "dress rehearsal," after final costume adjustments have been completed. With the added stresses of quick-changes and pore-clogging makeup and uncomfortable hairdos, it would be easy for all but the most seasoned performers to seem out of character or distracted. Rey feels like she's done a decent job of staying focused today, but she's currently waiting for her cue to enter and sing "Point Of No Return" with the unbearably attractive actor playing the Phantom, and she cannot seem to pull herself together.

She hears her cue.

She steps onstage.

And she can barely breathe.

Given that Christine the character is supposed to be at least a bit intrigued by the Phantom character - and that in this story-within-a-story, Christine is trying to play off of the Phantom's obsession with her - that could look fine to the director sitting out in the front row of the audience. For Rey herself, it feels less than stellar. She hopes her Phantom thinks she's just a really committed actress and that her nervousness is all fake.

She takes a low breath.

She squares her shoulders, and squeezes her toes imperceptibly inside her shoes to try and keep the tension out of the rest of her body.

She hits her pose and listens to her Phantom sing.

_ "You have come here,  _

_ in pursuit of your deepest urge..." _

Fuck yes, I have, thinks Rey, and then she quickly tries to focus again. What is Christine supposed to be feeling right now?

_ "...that our passions may fuse and merge..." _

She's supposed to act somewhat interested in him, but mostly just tolerant of him. Christine is an eager young singer who is already engaged to another man...

_ "Past the point of no return. _

_ No backward glances. _

_ Our games of make-believe are at an end..." _

Here, Rey-as-Christine actually is supposed to give a little bit of a backward glance. She sees her Phantom striding toward her, in tight black leather pants, a flowing shirt, black boots and a shiny half-face mask, and she shivers despite the hot stage lights.

_ "What raging fire shall flood the soul?" _

All of this is scripted, but it's hitting Rey differently tonight. When the other actor lightly touches her throat with both of his gloved hands, Rey wonders if he notices her racing pulse.

She steps away, as planned.

She fixes her eyes on a pre-determined point.

She sings her first words in this number.

_ "You have brought me  _

_ to that moment where words run dry..." _

Despite keeping obsessively hydrated, Rey's throat does suddenly feel dry.

_ "I've already imagined  _

_ our bodies entwining..." _

Okay, surely every Christine gets a little horny for their Phantom, right? It's normal? It's all a part of the story?

_"I've decided,"_ she sings, facing him directly now, and Rey thinks she sees him swallow nervously as he watches her.

_"One final question: how long should we two wait before we're one?"_

Okay, maybe it isn't  all just a part of the story.

Not for Rey.

_ "When will the blood begin to race? _

_ The sleeping bud burst into bloom?" _

She can feel her face flushing. She thinks her voice is unaffected, but as for the rest of her body? It's probably obvious to everyone in this huge, gorgeous building that she's eyefucking this huge, gorgeous man. She's learned from time and therapy not to catastrophize (she probably won't get fired since she has a contract; she definitely won't get sued for harassment for just sweating over this guy; maybe the people backstage can't actually sense her embarrassing obsession through the walls).

__________

Somehow she makes it through the rest of the rehearsal.The director gives notes, and the cast repeats chosen sections with minor adjustments. Finally, the work day ends, with call time reminders shouted at performers' retreating backs.

Rey, because she is playing Christine, has been lucky enough to get a tiny dressing area backstage for herself for the duration of the show. This is far from the norm, even for leads, so she silently rejoices in the luxury of it all as she changes into street clothes, then sits in front of the mirror and painstakingly pulls all the pins out of her hair. She has three of them left when she hears a knock at her dressing room door.

"Yes?" asks Rey. "Come in."

There's someone opening her door- a tall and gentle someone- but all Rey can think about is a lyric from the show they're starring in together.

_"In his eyes, all the sadness of the world._

_ Those pleading eyes that both threaten and adore." _

This isn't the Phantom, carefully closing her dressing room door. She's finally able to separate them in her mind. This is Ben Solo. The actor playing the Phantom. Rey is embarrassed about how obviously she must have been drooling over him onstage today, so she hopes whatever Ben wants to talk about will be quick and painless.

When he's stared at her for a bit too long with those dark, pretty eyes, she prompts, "Ben?"

Ben blinks, clears his throat, and fixes his eyes at a weird stain on the ancient carpet. For a man with such a commanding presence onstage, he's coming off sort of awkward now that he's back in jeans and a T-shirt. Rey finds she likes him all the more for it. They have barely interacted outside ofrehearsals, with a couple of "good mornings" and "see you tomorrows," but nothing of substance. Rey assumed that Ben, as a much more experienced performer than she is, simply didn't care to spend time getting to know her. She hopes, for just a moment, that she was mistaken.

Ben still hasn't spoken, so she fills the tension with chatter, as she often does. What kind of musical theater performer doesn't, at least a little, really like to hear themselves talk?

"What's up? D'you want to have a seat?" She gestures at the lumpy floral loveseat behind her vanity.

"Oh," he mumbles. "Your accent. It's... it's real."

"What do you mean, it's real?"

An almost apologetic half-smile from him. "I mean, we're doing a show. I thought maybe your voice was, like, a character choice. Like, we're supposed to be in Paris, but your Christine had a British accent because... well, now that I say it out loud, it sounds completely stupid." He's made his way over to the couch during his rambling, and when he sits- nope. Yeah. Still looks huge compared to her.

"You've still got your mask on, but not the rest of your costume?" She realizes belatedly.

Now he really looks embarrassed. "Hmm. Yep. I guess I didn't notice, I was in a hurry to get over here." He peels it off gingerly and fiddles with it. Rey can't stop watching his strong hands turning the delicate costume piece over and over. She has a sense that she needs to wait him out, though, so she takes the last three pins from her hair and starts quietly straightening up all the objects on the vanity.

At last, he begins.

"Rey... are you feeling all right? You don't look sick or anything. You don't sound sick either. You just looked different onstage today. And when we got to the verse with the hand stuff, your skin felt really warm even through my gloves and I- I wanted to check in."

Oh. Great. How perfectly mortifying. He's sensitive and thoughtful and incredibly clueless, and she has to figure out how to say "I'm all good, I just wanted to feel your gloved hands all over me" without making him hate her. 

"I'm okay, but thanks for checking," is her first answer. Her polite answer. He raises a brow, and she knows he won't let that be the complete answer.

"I think I got... you know... swept up in the story. Which is silly, of course, because we've done it a dozen times. I was thinking about how Christine would feel, and she doesn't hate the Phantom, she's actually pretty intrigued by him in some people's interpretations and so I was playing off of that sort of energy and it maybe came off strong. You know how actors are."

"I do," Ben replies softly. "I do know how actors are. It's why I've never slept with one before."

Rey can't help it - a huge laugh bursts out of her before she can stop it."Never? We've all made at least one cast-based mistake, haven't we? I've been with a few basses and even, Christ, a mezzo."

"Nope. I always used to wanna be the most interesting one in the room."

Rey has been looking at him in her vanity mirror, but at this, she turns around on the vanity's metal seat to look directly at him. Into those pleading eyes.

"Used to?"

"I think," Ben says slowly, "that I've changed my mind."

Before Rey can figure out what that means, Ben continues. "So I wasn't making you uncomfortable? The Phantom's an intense dude, and I'm told that so am I."

"No," she is quick to reassure him. "It wasn't anything you did. In fact... I think I just need to practice the last half of the song one more time and then I'll be fine."

Rey can barely keep from grinning as she finishes that thought. A plan has formed.  **Please,** she sends up in thought to the rafters.  **Tantivy Theater ghost, if you're real. Help me out here. Let this work** **.** She stands up and steps closer to Ben. "Do you mind?"

"Nope. Let's get to it."

"Then put your hands on me," Rey practically purrs. 

Ben blinks. She can nearly see the wheels turning before his expression clears. He sets the mask on the ground, stands up, walks over to her, and caresses her throat like he does in the show. Without gloves, it's a whole new level of intimate having Ben Solo put his hands on your body.

Rey tries it all- she bats her lashes. She sings as swankily as she can. She twists her hips as she takes her choreographed number of steps away from him and then back again. Ben keeps it professional, but she thinks she isn't imagining the fire in his gaze. 

When they finish the number, he says, "Again, please? Just the first part." Rey is confused as they set up their pose again-until Ben's hands don't stop at her throat. He's standing behind her, and one of his hands slides up into her messy hair, the other following the curves of her body down to squeeze her hip. She feels hotter in these street clothes than she ever has in a fancy dress. He leaves a whisper of a kiss on her neck then asks, "Is this okay?" She nods, but he draws back both of his hands. She turns to face him, confused again.

"Do you want this, Rey? Say it."

"Kiss me," she breathes, and then he's everywhere. He's tasting her lips. He's caressing her ass. He's lifting her into his strong arms, he's putting her down on the couch, he's folding himself down over her and pressing her down into the cushions and holding her waist and sighing and kissing all the remaining lipstick off of her.  


He's too big for this couch. 

He's too big for this room.

He's too big for this theater.

__________

Later (after she finds out that he isn't, in fact, too big for her), she rests her head on his slightly sweaty chest and he combs one giant hand through her hair, the other hand drawing nonsense patterns on her skin. Rey worries for a few seconds that this will make things awkward at work, but she tells him that and they have what seems like entirely too reasonable and rational a conversation for post-rehearsal, post-sex people. At length, they get dressed, chatting and getting distracted by little flurries of kissing, and he opens the door for her and walks her out to her car.

__________

Audiences of The Phantom of the Opera at the Tantivy Theater mostly go home happy. Ben is a mysterious and pitiful dark creature of a Phantom. Rey is a good Christine, though a few people wonder why they don't seem to love seeing her end up with Raoul, despite the cloyingly sweet All I Ask of You they sing together. Do they know the real reason? Certainly not. 

But backstage, a sleeping bud has certainly burst into bloom.

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, I'm sure you're wondering: Does the author have a Christine note? Can she sing that high Angel of Music section?
> 
> Yes, dear reader, she can- but only on her best days. ❤️


End file.
